Penstemania (shhhhhhhhh: there's a conspiracy afoot!)

Penstemon utahensis

Coloradoans have a bit of a thing about Utah: that state has gone and hogged the lion's share of canyon country (we do have a pretty hefty sliver, I grant you--but Utah? Egad--they have canyons up the wazoo!)...and all those Mormons! How many of us (especially our Q-Anon brethren) are convinced the Beehive State has employed a whole village or two of polygamists in one of those prim little SEEMING towns down by Kanab who are busy hybridizing new species of penstemons which they plant out cleverly and botanists are hoodwinked into naming them: Noel and Pat Holmgren are by far the most gullible of their victims! Those "botanists" have gone and named dozens of species all over Utah the last half century. It's bad enough Utah picked the most glaringly coral red penstemon to name after itself (my picture above, taken on April 28, 2008 near Moab: dontcha love metadata!?). Hang in there...the plot thickens in this posting--and ends with a BANG!

Penstemon ambiguus

I first saw this enchanting penstemon on the Samalayuca sand dunes of Chihuahua growing over 4' tall in peak bloom in October of 1978 en route to find the yellow Phlox (another story altogether)...since then I've admired it in June growing thickly on Cactus Hill between Santa Fe and Las Vegas (NM, not NV) and growing very compactly (often quite pink) in vast throngs not far from Calhan, Colorado and all over the plains east of Lamar (CO). I have not been to Coral Sand Dunes and the other Utah localities where this abounds in bloom time: we grew this superbly for a while at Denver Botanic Gardens where I photographed it on June 28, 2007 (I do love metadata!)

Penstemon barbatus

Here's the grand scarlet bugler that launches the red penstemon season, often in May: abundant in much of southern and Western Colorado--it marches right past the polygamists in Kanab all the way to California.

Penstemon  mucronatus

Here's one of those likely hybrids the Kanabians planted out to trick the Holmgrens: there are a bevy of husky plants in this section of the genus that were distinguished as Noel and Pat (and a few other gullible folk mostly at New York Botanical Gardens) compiled and published their monumental Intermountain Flora. I have it from reliable Q-Anon informants that that shelf-full of "botany" is mostly fake news! Those folks should know: their Colorado co-horts got Lauren Opal Boebert elected to congress from Colorado's Third Congressional district! That pistol-packin' mama will be in Congress next term to shoot holes in all that hokey science stuff they try and foist on the honest, gun-loving folk of our great country! That is, if Grand Junction doesn't nab her first for evading court proceedings. Or the eighty people she food-poisoned with her good ol' country cookin'!

Penstemon cleburnei

As you might be guessing, I'm showing pictures of penstemons that are known to grow in Utah, although many were photographed in my garden or that of others: I spent many summers combing the fantastic back roads of Utah seeking these out--mostly in seed--when my ex-wife and I ran Rocky Mountain Rare Plants--which was the first American seed company (if we ignore the incomparable Sally Walker who specialized in Mexico and the Southwest, and the owners of Upton and Rockmount in Colorado that stuck close to home in the first half of the 20th Century) that sought to distribute unusual seed from the Rockies, Intermountain region and Great Plains: we were so successful that we spawned a mess of imitators who even used our very verbiage in their catalogues (that were mocked up in slavish imitation of ours)....not that I'm bitter or anything.... We also were probably the first to sell seed of most Utah penstemons featured in a book I'll talk about....anon (but not Q-anon for sure).

Penstemon caespitosus

THIS, I photographed in Colorado: my birthplace is pretty much smack dab in the middle of this little sprites range. I just realized I don't have it in my garden any more: I must remedy that--one of America's most abundant and beautiful rock garden plants. And yes, it sneaks into Utah (barely)...

Penstemon cyananthus

I bow down to the Beehive state when it comes to this gem, rather constrictingly called "Wasatch Penstemon"--although it grows in a dozen or more other ranges as well over much of central Utah and up into Wyoming where I photographed this (on the Bighorns). It certainly rates as one of the bluest and most gorgeous penstemonsl

Penstemon deustus

Dusty deusty, as we were wont to call this, has an enormous range in the upper West. The flowers rarely look so good: the plant is covered with glandular hairs that gather the brown dust so that the flowers are usually a strange shade of pale brown. If you can keep it undusted, however, it can be a charming plant in a xeriscape.

Penstemon eatonii

As Penstemon barbatus fades in June, P. eatonii takes over to keep the hummingbirds fed.  This one photographed at Denver Botanic Gardens' outstanding Children's Garden--which is definitely not just for kids.

Penstemon eriantherus

Thankfully this (just barely) makes it into Colorado, although this was photographed on the Beartooth Highway almost precisely on the Montana-Wyoming border. And it grows in Utah as well...

Penstemon rostriflorus

Just as P. eatonii fades, this fantastic plant takes over--surely one of the most gardenworthy penstemons: we have 30 year old plants on Dryland Mesa at Denver Botanic Gardens thriving with no supplemental water. This magnificent specimen was photographed at Laporte Rare Plant Nursery--one of Colorado's best nurseries. I believe this can be in full bloom for at least three months starting late July: it was championed by Plant Select so it is pretty widely commercially available in the USA at least...

Penstemon whippleanus

My ex-wife used to call this the "pouting Penstemon" (she used to do a rather ribald lecture where she illustrated Penstemon taxonomy and morphology with lurid props and exaggerated facial and body movements: If it had been videotaped I think it would be a Youtube classic. I can still see her pouty face as she did this one...an astonishingly variable plant that comes in a rainbow of colors from near black to navy blue, maroon, dingy gray and near white and almost yellow on Mt. Evans! Here it is above tree line on Horseshoe Mountain, Colorado. The Utah forms are more lavender blue than the lurid forms from further east and south.

Penstemon yampaensis

I was surprised to discover this species grew a short distance into Utah: I thought it was only ours in Colorado (named for the river near which I was born).

 Well...here it is! the real object of this rather discursive and strange blog post: if you have made it this far I think you will be even more annoyed when I tell you that you have to buy this book.

Why? For one thing--it will be a good investment. I predict the first edition will go out of print and that it will sell for hundreds of dollars in a few years: if you have any fiscal sense at all you'll buy several, as my buddy Scotty Smith informed me he did yesterday (and as I plan to do! Much better investment than the Stock Market--just wait and see!)...

It comprises 394 FOLIO sized pages chockablock full of gorgeous photographs (scenery/portrait/closeup) of all 76 species of penstemons purported to grow in Utah (although I suspect there are dozens more being planted out as I type by the Kanab polygamists, who must not hardly even sleep at night with all their propagating).

The front matter of the book is charming with copious historical notes and geographical/botanical/human interest all packed together. The subsection on "Penstemon diversity and classification" with closeup photographs of the staminodes and blossom shapes of ALL THE SPECIES and most of their subspecies is simply astounding in its usefulness: a graduate course in taxonomy boiled down for dummies. Bravo.Then there is an exhaustive and exhausting dichotomous key to all the species.

Then each species has a few pages beautifully laid out with artistic background to the text and copious historical, geographical, you name it data clearly laid out in readable print and prose.

Then there is a twenty seven page "Notable Contributors to the Study of Utah Penstemons". Which is essentially a "Who's Who" of Western American botany, also illustrated with gorgeous inset cameos of more penstemons!

There is a 26 page bibliography that they strangely term "References" that is actually laid out (with artistic background and inset vignettes of even more gorgeous cameo pix of penstemons!) so that you'll actually read the dang thing!

The twelve page Glossary (mysteriously superscripted with "180,331") is illustrated with thumbnail photographs to delineate the important and sometimes hard to understand Latin terminology: one of the few glossaries I've seen that's actually useful.

The index is truly exhaustive. And useful.

Most annoyingly, after having perused this book for quite a while, I've found not a single typo, solecism or mistake--except that this gorgeous, indispensable book incredibly does not have a dust jacket (which it would certainly need if you took it into the field, which surely you must take at least one of your copies). 

In fact, I can't think of another genus of North American plants of any kind (trees as well as herbaceous) that has ever had such a compendious and gorgeous treatment--especially on a state level. Colorado obviously needs to lure a few families of Kanabian propagators to move a state Eastward.

Needless to say, I approve of this book (missing dust-cover notwithstanding). I have spent a large part of my long lifetime exploring the stunning backroads of Utah, and I thought I was pretty clever having seen (and even grown) 59 of the 74 species in this book (albeit I didn't see them all in Utah necessarily). Needless to say, I plan to seek out the 15 species I somehow missed in the coming years, with one of my copies of this book in tow no doubt. Before those damn Kanabites plant out too many more anyway!

Penstemania rules!

PS: Just Google The Heart of Penstemon Country: there are numerous mail order sources that sell the book at significant discount: you can get it like I did in a few days. You'd be a fool not to!